A Hot Line By Teens For Teens

Volunteers Train For Phone Counseling

March 07, 1992|By LISA DANIELS Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — There are some things most teen-agers feel a little uneasy discussing with their parents.

Like boyfriends and girlfriends, sex and drugs.

"Some people just don't feel comfortable enough to think that their parents are going to understand," said Krista Everett, a 17-year-old Hampton High School senior. "They think that they're going to be upset with you when you talk about things like that."

That's why Everett and nearly 100 other local teen-agers have volunteered to work as listeners on the Peninsula's new Teen Hotline, scheduled to begin Monday. Sponsored by Campus Life/Youth for Christ, a Christian-based ministry for high school students, the hot line will give teen-agers the chance to talk things over with peers instead of parents.

Teen-age listeners can relate to teen-age callers because "they feel they might be going through the same thing you are," said Everett. "And maybe if they got through the situation, then they will be able to help you decide what needs to be done."

Culling ideas and tips from organizers of existing Christian hot lines in Tampa, Fla., and Milwaukee, Wisc., David Price, who heads the local hot-line ministry, devised the Peninsula program during the past few months.

Last weekend nearly 100 volunteers, teen-agers and adult supervisors, received 20 hours of hot-line training from local counseling professionals.

The training focused on listening skills. Volunteers were taught to remain impartial listeners and not to use the calls as fodder for gossip, he said.

In subsequent months volunteers will participate in additional workshops on how to handle certain types of calls - such as ones relating to suicide and AIDS, said Price. In many cases, the volunteers will refer the callers to social services and health-care agencies.

"We're not advice-givers," he said. "We're not going to tell the teens what to do."

The hot-line volunteers will work out of donated office space - at a location Price would not disclose for security reasons - in Newport News. The hot line will be open from 3-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and from 3 p.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday.

Callers, who can talk to the hot-line workers on a first-name basis, will be guaranteed anonymity, said Price. Eventually, the hot line will add a special line for the deaf.

Though volunteers need not be Christians, they must pledge to uphold the ministry's principals, including ones to "know the fundamentals of Christian faith" and present information "with a Biblical perspective," said Price.

Volunteers, who must present three recommendations from parents, teachers or clergy before they can work the hot line, will be instructed not to let their religious beliefs obscure real-world problems, he said.

"If a young girl calls and says `I'm pregnant,' we're not going to say `let's pray about it' - it's not going to go away," he said.

But since the Christian ministry doesn't believe in abortion, hot line workers will not give out telephone numbers of clinics that perform abortions. Instead, the caller will be referred to a social service agency or crisis center, he said.

Organizers from CONTACT Peninsula, a crisis intervention and rape crisis center that has run a 24-hour hot line since 1969, said the youth hot line will complement its program, which receives an average of 100 calls a day.

Though only a handful of CONTACT Peninsula's calls come from teen-agers, the new service "may meet a need," said Gail Robertson, a licensed professional counselor who heads CONTACT Peninsula.

Price said Campus Life/Youth for Christ plans on spreading the word about the new hot line by distributing 52,000 informational bookmarks and posters throughout area high schools and middle schools, traditionally their target market.

Despite the barrage of publicity, Price told his hot-line workers to be prepared to receive only a handful of calls in the first few weeks.

"Other hot lines have told us that in the first few weeks they received only three or four calls and some of them were like `When is Kecoughtan playing Phoebus?' " said Price, who said his volunteers will be equipped to answer those sorts of questions.